![]() Puerto Rico’s Arecibo and China’s FAST radio telescope have fixed reflectors that make use of natural depressions in the terrain left by a karst sinkhole. This is mostly a matter of what mechanics and engineering allow, with the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia currently the largest fully steerable radio telescope with a dish diameter of 100 meters. Most telescopes can be adjusted to point the reflector at different parts of the sky. Much like how an optical telescope’s primary mirror largely determines how much light will ultimately reach the sensor, so too does the size and shape of a radio telescope’s primary mirror (dish). Arecibo was capable of capturing between 1-10 GHz with multiple receivers using an effective 221 meters of its 304 meter diameter. Radio telescopes work in a similar way but are tuned to receive radio frequencies. In the case of optical telescopes, this means the visible part of the EM spectrum. Telescopes are essentially highly sensitive instruments for observing remote sources of electromagnetic radiation. The real question is, what have we lost? Are there successors to Arecibo that are able to fill the very large gap now facing the scientific community? Looking at the aspects of the telescope that made it unique helps us find those answers. What Defines Arecibo The Green Bank Telescope. Was Arecibo’s demise truly unavoidable, and what does this mean for the scientific community? Its data fed public programs such as the and projects. Not only is Arecibo a landmark in Puerto Rico, it is the telescope from iconic movies such as GoldenEye (1995) and Contact (1997). When the National Science Foundation announced that they would be decommissioning the telescope, there was an understandable outpouring of grief and shock. In the case of the Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, the past months has seen not only astronomers but also countless people across the world wait with bated breath after initial reports of damage to the radio telescope’s gigantic dish. ![]() ![]() Few telescopes will get an emotional response from the general public when it is ultimately announced that they will be decommissioned.
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